[beaconstudios]

forcing interaction doesn't remove that pre-existing hate though (I'd prefer the term prejudice because I know many christians don't hate gays). Forcing a christian bakery or a muslim pizzeria to cater to a gay wedding would just foster resentment at being compelled by the government to perform an action against their will. Freedom of association means that groups that don't want to interact, don't have to. For someone with an egalitarian mindset that might seem abhorrent but some beliefs or characteristics can't necessarily be reconciled.

[npunt]

It may - or may not - change the prejudice of the individuals providing services. However, the sum of those prejudices (in the absence of laws that say otherwise) normalizes separation & segregation, which creates an environment for hate to grow.

Humans tend to distrust/dislike those we're not close to. Lots of evidence shows associating with people builds empathy. Taken to its extreme, segregation causes us to 'other' people and lose empathy.

[beaconstudios]

I'm not sure which would be the lesser evil - permitted self-segregation or forced interaction. I also don't see why separation and segregation would cause hate - usually it's groups that are in conflict living in close proximity that causes real problems. See: Apartheid, pre-civil-war America, Israel and Muslims in the Middle East, and so on.

Association certainly breeds empathy, but what if that association is forced by a third party? If I didn't want to interact with a member of group X, and the government decided I had to interact with them or face some arbitrary punishment, initial interactions would be stained by that use of implied force. When you add religion into the mix, tensions are even worse because you might find yourself stuck between blasphemy and judicial punishment.

[npunt]

> Association certainly breeds empathy, but what if that association is forced by a third party?

Its not like everyone feels 'forced', its only a few people (just like I don't feel forced to drive within lanes or not kill people - these don't register for me). But the impact of their attitudes is potentially much greater.

Lets say there are 3 groups of people - (M)inority group, (P)rejudiced people who have businesses, and (E)veryone else.

In this instance, the forced interaction is only forced on P, which is a small number.

P's actions would have broader impact though. The M's would find themselves less welcome in certain areas, and over time (justifiably) choose to go elsewhere. Less M's mean E's would have less interaction with M's.

P's unchecked actions would also begin to normalize P's behavior, and embolden their stance. Normalization would potentially increase the number of E's becoming P's.

Over a long time, this could create an environment where M's choose to leave entirely, E's simply lose out on the opportunity to interact with M's, and increase the likelihood E's turn in to P's through osmosis of P's normalized behavior, and because of lack of personal experience with M's. The P/E community get segregated from the M community, and whenever there are struggles between those communities (which always happen between communities, e.g. resources, culture, etc), empathy is not there to keep things civil. All due to a few Prejudiced individuals not liking being 'forced' to interact with others during the course of their personal choice to engage in (government regulated) economic activity.

Basically, a few rotten apples spoils the lot.

[makomk]

Not only that, but if it's legal not to do business with a minority group, then people who aren't themselves prejudiced will come under pressure not to do business with or employ members of the minority group in order to keep the prejudiced people who don't want to associate with those minorities happy.

[beaconstudios]

if the number of prejudiced people in business is small (and therefore avoidable), why would the minority group choose to leave the environment entirely? After all, we're talking about the prejudiced group simply not wanting to have to associate with the minority group, not necessarily hating them or wishing harm upon them. We all have people who don't like us, often unjustifiably, but we just avoid interacting with those individuals rather than abstaining from interaction with anyone in their community.

In cases where the number of prejudiced is higher and thus the minority group is unlikely to be able to avoid dealing with a prejudiced business owner, it's unlikely that the two groups would have ever gotten along in the first place.

[npunt]

> if the number of prejudiced people in business is small (and therefore avoidable), why would the minority group choose to leave the environment entirely?

This happens, a lot. Again, per my previous comment, behavior is normalized, potentially creating a hostile environment.

> After all, we're talking about the prejudiced group simply not wanting to have to associate with the minority group, not necessarily hating them or wishing harm upon them.

We don't necessarily know that. The law certainly doesn't know that.

> We all have people who don't like us, often unjustifiably, but we just avoid interacting with those individuals rather than abstaining from interaction with anyone in their community.

It only takes a small number of people or a few bad interactions for one to choose to avoid an entire area.

> In cases where the number of prejudiced is higher and thus the minority group is unlikely to be able to avoid dealing with a prejudiced business owner, it's unlikely that the two groups would have ever gotten along in the first place.

That's an assumption. Again, plenty of evidence to show that people who don't associate have prejudices that can be extinguished through repeat exposure.

I can see that these all seem small issues in the individual instance, but the thrust of my argument is their cumulative effect has broader implications.

At the risk of seeming too personal (and I mean this sincerely and not in a mean way), it honestly doesn't sound like you've been in an environment where you've felt unwelcome in this way, or spoken to someone who's felt that way about their experiences in certain areas.

[Miner49er]

Depending on how the interaction plays out, there is a chance that prejudice would be reduced due to contact hypothesis, but it seems unlikely that the criteria would be met for most services. For some services like wedding photography, however, it seems likely that the criteria would be met and prejudice might be reduced.

[beaconstudios]

I wouldn't think the contact hypothesis would play out quite so nicely under duress from the government. People naturally hate being forced into situations they're uncomfortable in, and I could very easily see that frustration being projected onto the individual/s that the person is prejudiced against.

[Miner49er]

That's true. It's hard to say. I do know that it was thought that forcing schools to not be segregated would cause the contact hypothesis to come into play and reduce prejudice in children. It was a part of Brown vs. Board of Education. That seems to have worked too, but that was for children. They may not have had much prejudice to begin with.

[pshposh]

When you talk about a Christian bakery forced to cater a gay wedding are you referring to a specific incident? Has that happened?

[nkurz]

I think most people are referring to a specific case in Ireland. The bakery was refused to provide a cake with a slogan "Support Gay Marriage", citing religious objections to the practice. The bakery lost the case, and the appeal: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37748681.

[beaconstudios]

it's actually happened quite a few times in the USA as well. If you search "USA christian bakery" there's at least 3 or 4 separate cases of bakeries that have been sued on the front page alone.

[edit] by search, I mean on Google rather than HN